That's a Taboo Topic
by Appaku
Summary: ONESHOT: Daisuke has had it with all the talk about passwords. He decides to divert the conversation by playing a good old game of Taboo.


-1**Author's Notes:** I'm hitting a slump with that long fanfic… sorry for continually long waits on the new chapters. This was just a short oneshot full of Daisuke love (and everyone else…), and it was a lot of fun. Also, don't take my word for what's on the cards and what note. Even for how much I play it, I don't have it memorized.

Disclaimer: I do not own Please Save My Earth (which is a work of fiction), any of the characters, or the game Taboo. But I love all of the aforementioned things except Haruhiko.

Daisuke was sick and tired of these meetings.

Well, that was only partly true. He was sick of everyone's constant drama, picking up old arguments, conspiring behind eachother's backs, and now, they had brought up the passwords. That was the major thing he had to stop.

This week, he made a strong effort to get the whole gang together- Alice, who doubted her Mokurendom, and even the mysterious Haruhiko, included. None of them could contain their curiosity, wondering what kind of idea he had in store for them all.

"You seem very happy, Mister Host," Rin addressed him politely. "But we're all eager to know why you were so insistent we all be here today. Would you mind letting us know?"

The other's expressions also urged him to get down to business. He smiled, very pleased with having their attention. It was good to feel like a leader once again. "We've all gotten pretty tense in our discussions lately, so I thought we'd just have a little fun today." Everyone got excited and started coming with ideas for things to do, but they were all interrupted by Daisuke oh-so-happily pulling a colorful box out from behind his back. "Let's all play Taboo."

The other reincarnated scientists did a simultaneous face plant together. He really was such a linguist at heart to be so excited about it. It was obvious there was no convincing him out of it, so they humored him.

Making teams would be difficult with seven people, so they decided to play as one big group to see how many words they could all figure out together. Being the leader, Daisuke took his turn first. Rin turned the timer over, and Sakura looked over his shoulder, all too eager to press the buzzer if he used a word listed at the bottom of the card, or broke any other such rule. Unfortunately for her trigger happy fingers, he was a whiz at this game.

His first word was 'parachute'. "Alright," he said a loud. "I can work with this."

"Well, get on with it," Jinpachi nudged. "Give us hints."

"Okay. These are big and colorful, and you often see them--"

"A parachute?" Issei asked. Daisuke looked at him blankly. "Well… go on, Daisuke."

He shook his head and picked up the next card. "You use this when you get tired of stains on your… um… large supports of your house, or when you're doing an interior makeover…"

"And it's big and colorful…?" Haruhiko furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to piece the clues together.

"Paint," Issei said plainly.

"I don't think you can describe 'paint' as 'big', Issei," Rin replied.

"But didn't we move on?" he asked. "Did I get it right?"

"Yeah, both of them," Sakura replied.

"Both of them? Well, okay, keep going, Daisuke. You're running out of time," Jinpachi said.

"Right. Okay. This is what you get when--"

"Conviction."

Everyone stopped abruptly and looked suspiciously at Issei, to which he replied, "What?"

"I think using your telepathy is cheating," Daisuke sent him an annoyed glance.

"I-I'm not doing it on purpose!" he protested. "I can't help it!"

"Ha! He admits it!" Sakura buzzed the buzzer at him.

"Time," Alice finally spoke up, as she pointed to the plastic vile. The linguist sighed, a little miffed about his turn being over before it started. He wasn't one to throw a fit, though, so he handed it off to Sakura.

"Maybe I'll sit this round out," Issei blushed. "If I can't stop myself from picking up the answers."

"That's not completely fair," Haruhiko shook his head. "How about if you get a word in your head, you just don't say it, unless you're absolutely sure the clues all match up well enough?" They all nodded at his idea, but couldn't shake off how strangely their dear old 'Shion' was acting.

"Let me know when to start," Sakura thumbed a card. Rin turned the timer again, and signaled her to start. "Alright… where do you go when you need a place to stay?"

"A relative's house?" Alice asked.

"It helps if you have money. Oh! And you might go to one of these after you get married."

"A realtor?" Rin asked.

"An insurance agency," Daisuke played off his suggestion.

Issei put a hand over his mouth to keep from blurting out the answer.

"Some are really nice… others, um, aren't."

"A house?" Jinpachi tried pointing out the obvious.

"Nevada-Utah state border ringing any bells?"

"What does that have to do with a hotel, Sakura?" shouted out Issei, who couldn't resist any longer.

"It… never mind. But it was hotel. Next card," she flipped it over, muttered crap under her breath, and then flipped the next one over.

"Is she allowed to do that?" Haruhiko asked, holding the buzzer carefully. Daisuke motioned for her just to keep going.

"Um… if you make a sauce, it goes well with peanut butter?"

"Grapes, strawberries, some kind of jam, or jelly?" Alice asked.

"No, these are man-made…"

"You'd eat that?" the unwillingly telepathic boy interrupted again. "Gross!"

"I didn't ask you what you thought of fluffer-nutters, Enju-kun!"

"Oh. Marshmallows," Rin answered. "Next card."

"Okay," she flipped it over. "Who do you call when--"

"Time," Daisuke held up the empty timer. "You got one point."

"One?" she raised her voice. "But they got hotel and marshmallow. That's two."

"Yeah, but you skipped one. That takes away a point."

"I thought you only loose points when you say something on the card," said Alice.

Jinpachi nodded. "Yeah, and doesn't one of the sides count for two points?"

A small quarrel started about the points are tallied, and just exactly what the rules were, but the leader was reminded that this was exactly the kind of thing he was trying to prevent. He sighed, and reminded everyone they were just playing for fun, and not for points. A little begrudgingly, Sakura passed the card holder to Haruhiko, who handed the buzzer to Jinpachi. Daisuke flipped the timer back over, and he immediately started.

"Um… Shion-- I mean, _I _might have liked him… back on the moon base."

Rin sent him a glare as a warning not to slip up again, and covered up by politely asking for more hints.

"Wears underwear on the outside… and he's an alien, like us!"

"Wait, wait, why would Shion like him?" Sakura asked.

"Um… because he's… a su-- a character on paper. But not from Japan." Jinpachi was close to buzzing him, but decided to let it slide.

"A character Shion would like…" Alice thought aloud. "Batman?"

"Close! Very close!"

"Superman!" Sakura, Rin, and Daisuke yelled in unison. Haruhiko nodded and turned over the next card.

"Okay, I've got a good one for this. Enju used to love this."

"GYOKURAN!" Alice shouted, happy to finally have a right answer. However, she didn't consider that his name was probably not written on the game card. Issei blushed as the others started shouting out similar answers.

"A geologist?"

"A blonde?"

"An idiot?"

"Shut up, Sakura."

"Um…" he wracked his brain trying to think of more ways to describe it. "You can cook these… they're good for you… lots of vitamins… gree--"

He was interrupted by Jinpachi blasting the buzzer in his ear. "You can't say green!"

"I-I wasn't going to say that…" he fibbed.

"Ha ha, Shion, you're a terrible liar."

"He certainly is," Rin agreed. "Regardless, he's out of time."

"Oh well. It was vegetables," he said and handed it off to Jinpachi, who dropped the buzzer in Issei's lap. The timer turned again, and he picked up the first card as fast as he could. He couldn't think of anything, so he picked up another. And another. And another.

"Just pick one already!" Issei yelled in frustration.

"Okay! Oh, this one will be easy," he smiled. "A few months ago--"

He stopped himself abruptly and looked over at Alice, who was curiously awaiting the rest of the hint. 'Balcony' would be an easy one for him to get the group to guess, if he brought up a recent incident like he planned. However, saying 'Alice shoved Shu off of one of these and then he got all his memories' would be crude, and he would risk hurting her feelings. There was no way he would let himself do that, so he fumbled with his words as everyone pressed him to go on.

"A few months ago, we painted ours?" he shrugged innocently. "I'll turn over the card instead." After doing so, he got a giant smile as Issei blushed profusely, especially since Jinpachi announced that it would be easy.

"You get a camera for this, and it's a popular hobby. You need all sorts of equipment, and models! Subjects and models. I'll bet everyone here has done this at least a few times… Issei? Why are you looking at me like that? I haven't said any of those words."

"That says 'pornography', not 'photography', Jinpachi!" he yelled quickly, and after the initial shock, every started laughing. Jinpachi's face turned very red as his time ran out.

"Models, huh?" Sakura laughed. "But you made a brave confession to us all!"

"Y-You know I didn't mean it!"

"By the way, Ogura-san," Alice smiled, also feeling humored. "What was the one you were getting at earlier?"

"Oh, that?" he pretended to have to check the back of the card. "Just balcony."

"You could have gotten that!" she gave him a very intense face. "You could have just mentioned that Rin fell off of one."

"Exactly," Rin smiled next to her. "We all would have gotten it right away. And you could have saved yourself a little embarrassment."

"Yeah, huh," he grumbled, and passed the cards to Issei, then picked up the timer. "Go ahead."

"Okay… what color is the ocean?"

"Blue," everyone replied flatly.

"Good! Um… people harvest these in Ireland a lot… meat and…"

"Potatoes," they said in unison again.

"Right! Okay… the magazine we found each other through. Who says it's title?"

"A ghost."

"Good! Um… um.. Oh! How ironic. Some of us used to have…?"

"E.S.P."

"Physic powers."

"Right! Wow, um, do you think this telepathy thing can go both ways?"

"No," Daisuke's eyebrow twitched. "You're just getting all the easy ones."

"That's not my fault!" he protested with a little sweatbead and flipped over another card. "Umm… Gyokuran's old password might have been something like 'I BLANK Mokuren', or something."

"Hey, don't bring that up," Daisuke started to say, but was interrupted.

"Love? Why is a simple word like that in there?" Rin asked.

"Hey…" Jinpachi's eyes widened. "I think that really _was _it! Wow! I remember!"

"What a lame password…"

"Hey!" Daisuke slammed his palms against the ground. "There will be no more discussion about passwords!"

Haruhiko shot a quick glance at Rin, who didn't look back at him. He wasn't able to read his expression to see what he was thinking.

"Umm… time?" Alice pointed to the plastic vile, not completely up to speed with the problem. Issei shrugged, and handed Rin the cards. He took a deep breath, and then nodded at Alice to flip the timer over.

"A series of queries on one person, most likely after a crime."

"Um… suspicion… questions, interview…"

"Investigation?"

"Interrogation?"

"Daisuke got it, interrogation. Next… one who did something, normally against the law."

"Guilty? Guilty person?"

"Criminal, crook… suspect…"

"The one who did it, out of many suspects?"

"The one with the beard?"

"Defendant… no. Um, um… it's on the tip of my tongue," Sakura babbled as she tried to think.

"Culprit."

"Or it's on the tip of Issei's brain," she looked over, slightly annoyed.

"Right. Okay… this is where you keep the culprits."

"Jail!"

"Prison!"

"The Slammer!"

"Confinement!"

"It was prison. Next word: downloads are a new version of this. Not indorsed by the entertainment industry…"

"Piracy? Bit Torrent?"

"Another version of the first word."

"Pirate."

"Now name a famous one."

"Long John Silver."

"Right."

Sakura leaned over to Haruhiko with her eyebrow raised, and whispered, "you don't suppose that these all mean something about Shu, do you?"

"No! No! Absolutely not! Never!" he fumbled and waves his arms around, which distracted Rin from his next card. He rolled his eyes and would have continued, but Jinpachi pointed out that he had run out of time."

"I was just joking," she laughed nervously at his reaction. "Alice, it's your turn."

Very happy to have her turn to take center stage now, Alice lifted the first card as Daisuke turned the timer over. This was her first time playing, but it couldn't be too hard, right? Especially since her first word was 'Azalea'.

"This kind of flower--"

BUZZ! Daisuke shook his head and she picked up the next card, reminding herself to look over the whole card first. 'Nincompoop'? She had never even used that word. The next one was 'bluff'.

"You do this when you… um… tell someone something that you don't really… I mean, this is normally is done when someone gam-- no, um, to call someone's….? To call someone's BLANK?"

Everyone stared back at her blankly, waiting for to give some better hints. She briefly made eye contact with Issei and silently pleaded with him to know what she was trying to say, but he didn't even pick up on that. To her side, Daisuke had a hand over his mouth to keep him from giving away a clever hint. She sighed, and picked up the next one. "Something you do alone."

"Kayak," Rin said, but didn't expect it to be the right answer. Alice was ecstatic someone figured out one of her hints, and then picked up the next card.

"He was a writer for a large string instrument, and became deaf later in his life. He liked to use minor 3rds in his work…"

Most everyone in the room looked puzzled with her again, until Haruhiko spoke up. "Hhm… isn't that Beethoven?"

"Right! That's exactly it, Shion!" she smiled enthusiastically. He blushed, and noticing that, she blushed as well. Noticing that, Jinpachi and Rin both scrunched up their faces in jealousy. Noticing that, Issei looked wistfully down at the ground. Noticing that, Sakura became concerned all over again for her friend.

Not noticing any of this, Daisuke was too busy keep himself from giving away an answer for the next card. It figured, he always thought of the perfect clues when it wasn't his turn. Alice's time ran out, and he eagerly took the stack of cards, but everyone started to look around the room, already loosing interest.

"I think I've remembered two of my passwords now!" Jinpachi announced for sake of a more interesting topic. Sakura, Issei, and Rin flocked to his side to hear more, and Daisuke's clever hints were all but drowned out.

"Hey… hey! Hello, former leader talking here?" he yelled. It was no use. Everyone had already fled back into a memory cascade (and Alice was doing her best to include herself). He grumbled. They probably all took his leadership for a joke, even now.

At least everyone looked moderately happy as they recalled something about bald spots and yawning, though he didn't bother listening. Sadly, he put away his favorite game, and asked Sarjalim that maybe in some far off series of reincarnations, he might be a school teacher to them or something, or at least in some position where they would listen to him again.

"Hey, Daisuke?" Jinpachi caught his attention again. Surprised, the former leader turned back to him. "We were just asking what kind of ice cream you wanted us to get. You said we were just going to kick back and have fun today, right?"

He smiled. Leadership was a two-way listening deal, and he didn't always have to have words ready in order to have that role. "It grows in the form of a bean, and it's one of the most popular flavors. It's often used as an oil for baking products."

Everyone became very quiet.

"Oh! Vanilla!" Alice shouted, very pleased with herself for getting something right. As they reassembled themselves for an unexpected party, Daisuke carefully put Taboo back on the shelf to wait for another day.


End file.
